1) Strengthen your pelvic floor muscles.
You’ve likely heard of kegels or kegel exercises, where you train your pubococcygeal (PC) muscles of the pelvic floor, through a series of contraction and release exercises. To understand what these muscles feel like when they’re fired up, try cutting off the flow of urine the next time you’re using the bathroom. After you cut it off, let it flow, then cut it off again, then let it flow again.
2) Limit your thrusting.
There are plenty of ways to enjoy intercourse without thrusting like a jackrabbit. You can massage the tip of your penis into her clitoral hood. You can focus on the nerve endings in her vaginal entrance instead of seeing how deep you can get. You can press your penis against her G-spot. Sure, throw a little thrusting in there too, but if you feel like you’re about to reach the point of no return, there are ways to slow things down without sacrificing your partner’s pleasure.
3) Wait longer for intercourse—or hell, don’t do it all.
All too often, we think of sex as being penis-in-vagina or penis-in-anus. But that’s such a limiting—and frankly, boring—definition of sex. There are plenty of other sexual activities that’ll bring you both pleasure and prolong the overall length of your hookup, including erotic massage, experimenting with kinks, or focusing entirely on stimulating your partner (oral sex, anyone?).
4) Switch things up.
Instead of picking one position and pounding away like the aforementioned jackrabbit, try alternating between a few different configurations to last longer during sex. Switching positions provides a little bit of “time off” when your penis is not being stimulated.
5) Choose sex positions that’ll help you last longer.
In a similar vein, you want to skip positions that provide too much stimulation. Positions like doggy style or flatiron, where you can go super-duper deep and get all the extra stimulation from your partner’s booty, are probably good to skip.
Instead, try positions that only allow for shallower penetration, or that don’t allow for much “in and out” movement. The CAT (Coital Alignment Technique) is ideal if you’re looking for something shallow. (Plus, if your partner has a clitoris, it’s great for their pleasure!) Then there’s the Lotus position, which is all about grinding against each other as opposed to hardcore thrusting.
6) Try edging.
Delaying your orgasm while masturbating can be one of the most effective ways to train yourself to last longer during sex. This is also known as edging, and according to Walsh, it’s one of the most common techniques for avoiding premature ejaculation. Basically, you bring yourself right to the edge of orgasm before stopping all sexual or masturbatory activity until you have your excitement under control.
Practicing this technique can help you teach your brain and body to better control your orgasm response and make sex last longer, says sex therapist Emily Morse, Ph.D. Just be sure to use a lot of lotion or lube while you practice edging to avoid chafing, she adds.
7) Try ‘The Squeeze.’
If you can feel your orgasm coming on, stop and squeeze right below the head of your penis. Apply firm pressure with your thumb and forefinger and focus the pressure on the urethra, or the tube running along the underside of the penis, advises Ian Kerner, Ph.D., sex therapist and author of So Tell Me About the Last Time You Had Sex
The squeeze technique can help you last longer in bed by pushing blood out of the penis and momentarily decreasing sexual tension, which represses the ejaculatory response, Kerner says.
